Understandably, this is going to vary not only person by person but also by how the car is primarily used i.e. daily driver, sporty daily driver, or those who track and race theirs...

I couldn't find many threads that tackled this by the search function, so forgive me if this is been discussed at length somehow/somewhere!

I'm curious what everyone's thoughts and opinions are on generally the best alignment settings (custom) outside of a standard factory alignment. For example, me: stock ride height (for now), but did install both rear control/traction arms with fully adjutstable SPC/Z1 versions along with the appropriate adjustment bolt(s). I did NOT elongate the hole (yet) because I'm still at factory ride height. However, I'm going to get my alignment tomorrow (if Big O can figure out how to do it). I had a tricked out WRX once upon a time, and IIRC I had asked for like -1.5 degree camber in the front and maybe -1.0 in the rear? I can't remember if that was before or after lowering it (just with springs). I could have sworn that made a big difference, just that small alignment adjustment when taking corners at higher speeds lol.

What do people like to run on a factory ride height setup? Or do you just stick with factory standard alignment ranges until or unless you lower it?

Thanks in advance

PS: Obviously also if IIRC, back when I had my alignment dialed in with the WRX, I wanted to get as close to total 0 toe as possible. Is this still the general rule of thumb?

 

I have my alignment at (-1 degrees in camber) on all 4 corners, with (0.01 toe-in) front and rear. I have done (0 toe) previously but did not like it as it felt like it was skating a bit but when I did 0.01 it felt fine.

 

Out-of-spec negative camber will cause premature wear on the inner edge of the tires. It just does. However, if you're running high performing 3-season tires you can only expect 12k to 15k miles out of them anyway, (more or less depending on your driving habits). So if you expect to replace tires every 12k-15k miles, then a -1.5° to -2.0° camber will be OK. And you really need to keep an eye on the inner edge wear, because when it starts to be noticeable, the situation will accelerate quickly.

But if you're planning on 30k miles out of your tires because you got a 4-for-3 deal on AS tires at Walmart, or because that's how long they last on your SUV, then expect disappointment.

 

Around -1deg camber all around is ideal imo, with a small amount of toe-in all around as well. With this setup you will have some inner edge wear but will corner fairly flat, so if you prefer more tire life and don’t really like corners you can raise your camber accordingly.
My car is at around -2deg all around, all stock with 350z springs, I do get some tire wear though and may resort to elongating the upper control arm mounts or changing to adj arms if I can find some.

 

Cool cool, so you were able to tell your alignment shop what settings you wanted and they had no problem getting it dialed in for you? So I might want to ask them to set toe (total) at 0.01 ... and the camber at -1... we'll see if they can handle that without their brains exploding

 

Awesome yeah I think there are a ton of adjustable arm options out there. Been browsing Z1's suspension section the last few days lol

 

Welp, for anyone interested... below are the latest and greatest alignment specs from your good 'ol local Big O Tires *sigh*... this is after installing the Z1/SPC upper/lower rear control arms, new adjustment bolts, etc. Figured they'd have all the adjustability they'd need to gosh, idk, at least get the same specs for each side, no? So now I have literally like an entire degree off of the rear camber between left and right. I mean, ideally, I'd like -1.0 on all four corners, or at least as close to it for each side as possible. They seem to think -1.04 on the Left and then 0.01 on the Right is just fine and dandy? But they were able to get the front camber specs within -0.05 of one another. Ugh.

I don't even know who to call (besides Ghostbusters) for this. Like, there has to be a performance alignment shop somewhere in the Denver, CO area that can tune suspension settings better than this...

 

Looks like they only adjusted toe, did you speak to the tech, or a manager before or after? Depending who did it they may not know how to adjust custom arms like that, not to mention the tech is likely paid flat-rate (meaning a set amount per job, so he will go as quick as possible), so if the numbers look okay (which they don’t, lol) they will call it a day. Fwiw, if you want to do it yourself, I would bet that 2-3 full turns of the turnbuckle will give you close to -1 deg.

 

See, I initially had a problem like you are having right now. I went to an alignment shop told them the specs and all they said is "only if we are able to". So, I just left because I knew they are going to half a** it. Went to another shop in the ghetto, and they got the alignment to my needs. Since then I have been going there only, and they dial everything in. But, you should mention to them or be there with them and tell them what does what, because the majority like Ponyryd mentioned just do whatever and send it off.